


truth or dare

by foxmagpie



Series: little gifts [19]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jealousy, POV Rio (Good Girls)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 00:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20266789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmagpie/pseuds/foxmagpie
Summary: Rio struggles to process his jealousy over Elizabeth and Peter's date. Rio and Elena have a conversation.





	truth or dare

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter jumps backwards in time a little bit, so that the timeline actually overlaps with the previous chapter instead of continuing from it. It starts a few hours after Rio watches Elizabeth on her date with Peter, and ends on the evening of the day that Elizabeth went to Peter's toy store and told him that she wants to spend more time with him. Some things may contradict what we saw in Elizabeth's chapter because it's based on how Rio _interprets_ the situation, which may be different from the reality Elizabeth experienced. Hope that's not too confusing! Let me know if you have any questions afterward!
> 
> Also, Rio's family/past shows back up here so I wanted to do a brief reminder of their relationships/dynamics (I know there's a lot of OCs in this fic!)
> 
> **Consuelo**: Rio's mother, who obviously favors Rio and who can't resist a good guilt trip. She knows very little about what Rio is actually up to, and Rio tries to avoid disappointing her.  
**Osvaldo**: His father, a construction worker who died when Rio was 13 after a workplace accident left him with a concussion and he continued working because the family needed money.  
**Miriam**: His oldest sister, a mechanic. This is the sister relationship that is most tense for Rio, as she is usually annoyed and jealous of the clear preferential treatment Rio receives and because, as the eldest, she sacrificed a lot for the family when their father died. She knows the least about Rio's true life.  
**Verónica**: The middle sister, a Nurse Practioner at Planned Parenthood. She talks similarly to Rio sometimes and they have a close playful relationship. She patches Rio up when he's hurt, and knows some basic details about his crime life.  
**Sonia**: The sister closest in age to Rio (only 11 months older). She's a math teacher and she pries the most into his life, but Rio's also closest with her. Her wife is Felicia, and they often help out watching Marcus. They have two kids (Julián, Marcus's buddy, and Camila, who is 2).  
**Elena**: Marcus's mother, and a friend from Rio's childhood. Consuelo took her in as a teenager when her parents were deported. She was married to Rio's best friend Mar. She trusts Rio implicitly and isn't afraid to challenge him.  
**Mar**: Martín was Rio's childhood best friend (and the reason Rio has the nickname Rio). They were both troublemakers, but after high school, Mar went straight while Rio fell deeper into crime. After joining the military, Mar suffered from PTSD and ended up physically abusing Elena. Rio and Elena severed all ties with Mar when Rio found out.

After a fucking disaster of a night, Rio ends up at the gym with his fingers taped and stuffed in a pair of gloves, beating the shit out of a punching bag. It’s late, so the place is almost empty, but there’s a few other people on liftin’ weights or running on the treadmill.

The clank of metal weights hitting against metal bars echoes in the space. Sweat drips down his spine and pools at the line of his shorts as he jabs _ one—two—three_, darts off to the side, and then goes again. 

He feels like he’s been all over the fuckin’ city: first _ Applebees _ (he still has to laugh at that), then to meet up with Annie, and his last stop before the gym had been Jen’s.

Mouth slack and breathing heavy, Rio aims and hits the bag with precision and force, causing a loud _ SMACK _ to reverberate in his ears. 

He doesn’t know why the fuck he’d just sat there in front of Jen’s house with the engine running, staring at the glow of the TV through the front window, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel before he’d just… driven away.

Rio has no idea where to aim his frustration—himself or Elizabeth. 

What the fuck was _ that_?

What the fuck was _ tonight_?

This was new for him, jealousy—he’s never had nothin’ to be jealous over, not since he was a kid all crazed with the need to be the best at anything, everything. He’d outgrown that real quick once he realized the game was rigged anyway for brown kids from poor neighborhoods where there were too many mouths to feed. 

He stopped giving a shit about anyone else’s standards, and now he does things the way he likes to and answers to nobody. He’s the boss, he’s the king, he’s on top—there’s not a lot of people who have something he don’t, yeah? 

Still. He’d felt that shit tonight, jealousy burning low in his belly as he’d sat in that cheesy ass excuse for a restaurant watchin’ Elizabeth go on a date. 

Goddamn, she’d looked good in that dress. It wasn’t even something special, just some plain black number—but it was different, and she was different in it. He’d watched her reach out and touch the guy within the first ten minutes that he was there (he strikes the bag with a _ thwack_), he’d watched her smile and laugh easily (he bounces on his feet, breathing heavy), and afterward, he’d waited in the parking lot to catch her alone and debrief only to watch her be kissed by another man (he plants his feet, then aims another blow, but his technique’s off—he feels it blast through his knuckles and shoot back to his elbow).

Running his forearm across his forehead, Rio tries to mop up the sweat that’s running down his face. He exhales, then collapses onto a nearby bench completely depleted. He just sits there trying to steady himself for a minute, his bones throbbing. When he feels like he’s caught his breath, he reaches for and awkwardly grips his water bottle in his gloved hands, drinking greedily from it. 

Sure, Elizabeth had been jealous too. She’d thrown the redhead in his face, used it as an excuse to ask him to leave. That shoulda made him smug, but the power was fleeting. He’d watched her walk straight back to Sweater Vest, and then she’d gotten better control over herself—her glances grew more and more infrequent as the night went on. 

Rio had gone straight to his scheduled drop with Annie, his fury igniting over the fact that he was early and she was late, that one of her clients was moving out of town, that she was related to Elizabeth at all—because that meant he couldn’t stop thinking about her, and all he wanted to do was stop thinking about her.

That’s why he’d gone to Jen’s. He’d wanted to get lost in another person, work out his ire and everythin’ else Elizabeth was risin’ in him, but then he’d just… what? Turned around? 

Rio has never turned around. 

“Hey,” a voice says, interrupting his thoughts.

Rio looks up to see some white dudebro in a wife beater. 

“Yeah?” Rio asks sharply.

“Saw you on the punching bag, man." 

Rio cocks an eyebrow, doesn’t say anything. 

“Wanna do a few rounds?” He nods towards the ring. 

Rio sizes the guy up—he’s bigger than Rio by several inches and several pounds, but that ain’t never been a problem before. There’s somethin’ annoying about his face, and if Rio ain’t gonna work out his aggression in the sack? He may as well do it in the ring. 

* * *

“Is that—is that a bruise on your face?” Elizabeth asks, taking a tentative step towards Rio in the descending darkness of dusk. He sees her raise her hand as if she’s going to close the gap between them and reach for his jaw, but she thinks better of it and turns her fingers back towards herself, runs them through her hair.

They’re standing in her backyard. The sounds of her kids playing and laughing and yelling in the house is a dull throb in the background, and he and Elizabeth are further apart than usual, far enough away that Rio would have to take three or four strides to meet her. 

“What happened?” 

Rio doesn’t much feel like telling the story. He’d won the fight in the ring, but just barely. The bruise had bloomed before he’d even left the locker room, and it was still dark against his skin two days later. 

“‘S nothin’,” he says shortly. 

“Did you—did you get into a fight again?” 

He sees it, the moment Elizabeth remembers him showing up bloody and bruised on her back porch on Christmas. She casts her eyes downward, her cheeks pinken, and he knows she’s remembering everything else that happened that night, too. 

“Where you been?” Rio asks roughly in lieu of answering. He’s been waiting for her to show up for almost two hours, watching an empty house—for the second day in a row. He’d tried to drop by yesterday evening, too, but had given up before she’d ever returned. Rio knows the random drop-bys ain’t a foolproof method for having a meeting with anyone, and it’s not the first time he’s had to wait her out. Usually, he just figures she’s runnin’ suburban mama errands. Now he wonders. He flexes his fingers inside his jacket pocket. 

If Rio wasn’t watchin’ her so closely, he wouldn’t see that Elizabeth flinches—her movements are minuscule. “Errands.” 

It’s one of her half-lies, and he knows she saw him today. Maybe yesterday, too.

“Mmm.”

“Who did you fight?” She tries to mask it, but her voice shakes a li’l.

Rio’s scoff turns into a laugh. He lets her squirm, lets her imagine who he might have gone after. He even gives himself the pleasure of imagining it, too—not that it’s something he’s seriously considering. At this point, Sweater Vest ain’t worth this time. He does smirk, though, remembering the satisfying crunch of his fist against her husband’s orbital socket.

Finally, he says, “Relax, sweetheart. I didn’t touch your boy.”

Elizabeth doesn’t correct him—she just lets out the breath she’d been holding. Rio looks away and runs his tongue along his teeth. 

“Are you alright?” Elizabeth asks, taking a step towards him. A thought flickers through Rio’s mind that his mask of indifference is slippin’ ‘til she says quietly, “I could… get you some ice?”

Elizabeth looks at him with a mixture of concern and tenderness, and Rio hates it. He looks down to fix her with a glare, but she doesn't react to it. 

“We good to move on with Kostra or what?” he asks gruffly instead of answerin' her. 

Elizabeth glances at her feet, then meets his gaze again. “I’m going to—” 

The back door flies open and closes with a slam, and Jane appears, draggin’ that fuckin’ pink blanket behind her. Her face is tear-streaked and Rio runs a hand over his lips down to his jaw, pressing against the soft swell of his bruise. 

Jane spots him and hiccups, turning shy. 

“Mommy.” 

Elizabeth turns toward Jane and, seeing her li’l tremblin’ lip, walks away to lean down and scoop Jane up into her arms. The blanket dangles from Jane’s hand, and Rio has a flash memory of pressing his gun into a man’s skull, asking where it was—not even knowing _ what _ it was, after he was sure there wasn’t no little five-year-old hiding anywhere in the house. Then there’s another flash—stuffing it into an envelope, dropping it off in her mailbox, half-furious with himself for doing so. The sound of Elizabeth’s voice, slightly slurred, waking him up from sleep, plays in his ears: _ You went in the house. You _ yelled _ at me. _ Then, bolder: _ Why didn’t you come in? You were right there, at my mailbox. You’ve broken in here too many times to count. You were right there. _

Rio can’t hear what they talk about, but whatever it is appears to be a problem that can’t be solved in thirty seconds. Elizabeth gives Rio a pleading look. 

“We’ll finish later,” he says, voice clipped, already turning away from her.

“It’ll only be—”

“Later,” he calls, stalking off to the fenceline of her yard.

“Are we—are we doing lessons? I got a sitter—”

Rio stops and looks over his shoulder. Jane’s burrowed her face into Elizabeth’s chest, and Elizabeth stands still, waiting for his answer. He gives a slight shake of his head, and says, “Nah. I got dinner plans.”

Elizabeth opens her mouth as if to say something, but she stops herself. He can see the question on her lips anyway: _ A date? _He doesn’t bother to deny it. He just watches her process and slowly close her mouth, giving him a tight nod. 

* * *

Because he’d waited around so long for Elizabeth to appear, he’s late. He strolls into the house and most of his nieces and nephews are playin’ some board game on the coffee table, fightin’ about whether or not someone cheated on their last turn. Marcus is with ‘em, and Rio squats down next to him.

“You playin’ fair, yeah, pop?”

Marcus gives Rio a sly grin, but says, “Yeah, daddy.”

Rio smirks, ruffles his hair, then pops back up to head into the dining room, where pretty much everyone sits with an empty plate in front of ‘em. 

“Elena said you were coming, but I wasn’t sure—” his mother says, jumping from her chair and making towards the kitchen until she spots his bruise. “What happened?”

“Just a boxin’ injury.”

“Ay, mijo. Ten cuidado, okay? I hate seeing you hurt.” Consuelo cups his cheek gently, and, for a brief second, Rio leans his face into her hand and lets his eyes flutter closed. “I’ll fix you a plate.”

Consuelo gives his cheek two pats before she turns and exits the room. Rio finds Elena’s eyes, and she gives him a half-smile, smug in her triumph. Although he’d have liked to avoid it, she’d roped him into coming by holdin’ Legoland over his head—her new trump card for the foreseeable future. 

Crossing her arms, Miriam rolls her eyes. “You’re the only one of us that doesn’t get a full-on lecture about skipping family dinner, you know that? She’s _ still _ making comments about us missing Christmas.” 

Miriam’s husband, David, groans, nodding. “Christ, that woman." 

Normally Rio would grin, but he’s just too worn down. He plops down in a chair next to Felicia with the baby on her lap, and he reaches out to run the backs of his fingers down Camila’s soft, chubby cheeks. Camila stares at him wide-eyed, then presses her face into her mother’s chest, not unlike Jane had done just thirty minutes ago. 

“We’re sorry about Christmas,” Sonia blurts, leaning over so that Rio can see her sitting beyond Felicia. “That’s why you were skipping family dinners, yeah? And why you haven’t returned any of my texts?" 

Rio sighs and chooses not to acknowledge his absence. “It’s a’ight.”

Consuelo bustles back into the room and sets a plate of flautas, rice, and beans in front of Rio. He starts eatin’, but nobody’s talkin’, and he pauses to look up at them starin’ at him. 

“So,” Sonia says, clearing her throat. “Elena’s bringing her new boyfriend to the next family dinner.”

Rio turns back to Elena and cocks an eyebrow. Elena shrugs, looking a little pleased. 

“Cool,” Rio says. “He’s a good guy. I like him. Marcus have fun at the game?”

Elena nods, but Verónica speaks over whatever story Elena is about to launch into. “_Sooo_…”

"Nuh uh," Rio says, swallowing the mouthful of food he’s got in his mouth. “Didn’t you just apologize for buttin’ into my business?”

“Come _ on_,” Verónica protests. “It’s been months at this point. We’ll stop teasing, but—”

“Quiero conocerla,” Consuelo adds. _I want to meet her. _She looks at Rio earnestly. “Please bring her, Christopher. We can have it just adults, no kids—if that’s easier.”

“Great. Suddenly we all need babysitters,” Miriam mutters under her breath, and Consuelo shoots her a pointed look. 

Rio scowls and pushes his plate away, and Elena fiddles with her fingers, uncomfortable in her sole knowledge of the reality of the situation.

“There’s no one to meet,” Rio says, scooting backward in his chair. His family glances uncertainly at him, trying to interpret what he means. 

“What? You broke—?” 

“I gotta make a phone call. ‘Scuse me.”

Rio walks around the table, all eyes on him, and opens the sliding glass door, shutting it hard behind him. 

The yard is fully dark at this point, and it appears that the porch light has burned out, too. There’s just enough light from the dining room to reach the patio furniture, but Rio walks past it to sink down onto the shadowed porch steps. 

_ Fuck. At least now the questions would be over, _ he thinks. But there’s another part of him that tugs and remembers being curled around her in a hotel bed thinking that they had _ time_—thinkin’ about the ways she was breakin’ down all his barriers and rules. Thinkin’ that maybe someday...

He hears the door open and close behind him and wonders who has volunteered to be the one to try and smooth things over with him. His mother? Sonia? (At the very least, he knows it’s not Miriam). 

It’s Elena’s voice that washes over him as she settles next to him on the step: “Do you remember when me, you, and Mar played Truth or Dare in the shed with Carrie Cunningham?” 

Rio’s breath hitches. They almost never talk about Martín. Even when they reminisce, they leave his name out. Looking at the left corner of the yard toward the shed—the place where him and Mar hot boxed and got drunk while Elena just hung out, mostly—he racks his brain. He has a vague memory of Carrie—she was brunette, maybe, and had a sorta mousy face. She was a friend of Elena’s that dropped off eventually. 

“Kinda. I remember that y’all got pissed at us.”

Her hears Elena let out a small laugh. “Yeah, well. You were daring us to do stupid shit like jump off the roof. That’s not why we were playing.” There’s a long pause as Rio doesn’t respond. “Mar and I weren’t dating yet. I wanted you to dare me to kiss him—I couldn’t have Carrie do it, or else he’d know I wanted to, you know?”

Rio furrows his brow and glances at Elena. “Why you need a game for all this?”

“We were 15. I was shy.”

Rio laughs. “_That _ didn’t last long.” 

“Shut up,” she says, punching him softly in the arm. 

“Well, I don’t remember darin’ you to do it.”

“No, of course you didn’t. You guys just wanted to do dangerous dares and get into trouble. The whole game was a bust. You never picked Truth.”

Rio turns his neck to study Elena, the sharpness of her cheeks and her nose, the deep hazel of her eyes. She’s a beautiful woman, and she knows it, and he’s always liked that about her. She blinks at him, her long lashes heavy with mascara, and Rio wonders where she’s going with this.

“No,” he agrees. He wouldn’t have—who would pick Truth when Dare was an option? 

“I was waiting and waiting for you to pick it. I even dared you to pick Truth—it might be the only time you backed down from a Dare, you know?” Looking at the ground, she smiles. “Did you know Carrie liked you?”

Rio sucks his upper lip into his mouth, trying to remember. “Don’t think so.” 

“She did. She was crazy for you. She was always talking about your skinny little chicken legs.”

“Sounds like she had it bad,” Rio drawls. 

“Ha,” Elena concedes. “She did, though. She was into ‘em. I was supposed to ask who you liked, see if she had a chance.”

Rio doesn’t remember ever hooking up with Carrie Cunningham, but his memory is hazy. It was a long time ago at this point. He’s surprised Elena’s dug up this memory at all. 

“I started paying attention to you more after that, scoping you out for Carrie, you know?”

Rio stares at Elena, waiting.

“You liked Hannah Sinclair, though.” 

If he had never heard her name again, he probably wouldn’t remember she existed, but suddenly images of Hannah Sinclair flood up. He remembers the way he’d stare at her in math class, the way her skirts sorta hiked up around her thighs, sticky on the plastic seats. How she nibbled on her pencil while she was concentratin’. How she kept her arm perfectly straight when she raised her hand to ask a question or give an answer—which was always. 

He hadn’t known how to approach her (a different time in his life, clearly). He was smarter than most everyone in the class ‘cept her, so he didn’t have an in (and he wasn’t about to pretend he needed _ help_). Rio had joined track and field just to see her in those li’l shorts and to be able to talk to her about somethin’. He’d tease her there, flick her shit about anythin’ and everythin’—the hand raisin', the pencil chewin', how she'd blushed when Mr. Ruiz announced her as the top score _again_. She used to glower at him and glow red.

“Yeah, I guess I did,” Rio says, but why the fuck are they talkin’ about Hannah Sinclair and Carrie Cunningham and Truth or Dare?

“You know, your sisters have never understood your type—Mar didn’t, either. I think they’ve always figured you’d end up with someone that looked like you. Tattoos, black jackets, the whole thing. They thought you wanted Rizzo, but you’ve always wanted Sandy in the yellow skirt and the ponytail.” Rio squints at her, not really placing the reference, but Elena barrels on. “You’ve always liked the challenge, haven’t you? You liked the blonde girls with the cardigans, the ones with straight teeth and perfect GPAs. The type to live in big white houses with parents who held a strict curfew—the ones you couldn’t have.”

Rio chuckles, amused, remembering Hannah clutching at him in the backseat of his car, some junky thing he’d bought with everything he earned sellin’ dime bags. Miriam had helped him fix it up, and that was how he’d gotten Hannah Sinclair—offered to give her rides home from away meets, ‘til she stopped being so skittish and nervous around him and started teasin’ _ him _ about all the ways he was teasin’ _ her_, callin’ him out on just how much he was payin’ attention to every li’l thing she was doin’. 

“Who says I couldn’t have Hannah Sinclair? I think we broke curfew once or twice.” 

“Yeah,” Elena says, nodding. “Once or twice. But Hannah Sinclair wasn’t about to skip the pep assembly to hot box in the shed, right?”

It’s funny, Elena saying this, when she had never cared much about participating in any of the nonsense Mar got up to. But she _ was _ right: the rest of the story locks together in his head. Hannah had kissed him in his car, but ignored him back in math class. Then, when he’d gotten suspended for gettin’ into a fight with a kid who had stiffed him on what he was owed, he was cut from the track team. Hannah had never spoken to him again, and he’d moved on ‘til she was a dull memory. 

“Hannah was no Sandy Olsson. I mean, it's no surprise. Most Sandys stay in the poodle skirt and never end up touching the skintight leather pants.”

“What are you _ talkin’ _ about?”

“_Grease_,” Elena says, like it’s obvious, like it’s something Rio should know about. “And you. And me.”

“I’m not followin’ any of this, Elena.”

“I mean, you’ve skipped over every Carrie Cunningham to try and land a Hannah Sinclair. Just trade butterfly clips for pearl necklaces.”

“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Rio says. Elizabeth’s not a Hannah Sinclair—Elizabeth’s Elizabeth. Even now, even knowin’ that she couldn’t take that final step into his world, he knows there’s no comparin’ her to anyone else. 

“I guess I’m trying to say… don’t let all this hold you back.” Rio lifts an eyebrow, confused by what Elena is trying to convey to him. “I held myself back for _ years _ because of what happened with Mar. Never really let anyone in, never really let myself fall—thinking I was protecting myself.”

He can’t say he’s shocked by this speech—he’s noticed himself the ways Elena is anxious in love, reserved and hesitant and serious. But that ain't _him._

He doesn't expect the next thing she says.

“Chris… Alex might be the one.” Elena smiles shyly, almost embarrassed to admit it. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. He _ sees _ me. And we’ve talked about everything that happened with Mar, and my relationship with you, and he just… gets it. And he _ supports _me.”

“That’s good.”

“Did you know I want a big family?” Elena asks suddenly, turning to look at him. “I want Marcus to have brothers and sisters. I want him to grow up like you did, not like I did—all alone.” 

Rio sucks his teeth, letting this wash over him. He’s never really thought about Elena having more kids, of Marcus having brothers and sisters that weren’t his (honestly, he’s never even really thought about whether _ he _ wanted more kids—but he instantly knows he wants Marcus to have what he has with his sisters—even now, when they’re drivin’ him crazy).

But Elena’s been part of his family for so long, it’s hard to imagine her having her own completely separate from him. To imagine _ Marcus _ having something that has nothin’ to do with him. It’s not jealousy, exactly, but somethin’ heavier, something that sits tangled in his gut. No anger in any of it, just... somethin' he doesn't recognize. 

“A’ight,” he says slowly, wondering how he’s supposed to respond. It’s not that he ain’t happy for her, it’s just—what’s he supposed to say? She ain’t askin’ his permission, or even his opinion. 

“I just want you to know it could be coming. I don’t want to leave you behind.”

This ruffles him, and his spine stiffens. “Don’t worry ‘bout me.”

“Chris, I can’t help it. This is your first time losing someone,” Elena says. Immediately, Rio wants to protest, but Elena interrupts him even though her voice cracks a li’l. “I don’t mean it like that. Your dad? Mar? You couldn’t control that. Terrible things happened, and suddenly they were just... gone. It was horrible, and it was unfair, but… it’s different. It’s different when maybe you didn’t _ have _ to lose them.” 

Rio sighs. "What are you tryin' to say?"

“I don’t know the details. I don’t know anything about her, or why it ended—I just know I let my baggage hold me back before and I don’t want the same thing to happen to you. So,” Elena exhales, finally getting to her point, maybe. “Can it still be fixed? Is she Sandy? Are you Danny? Is she gonna join the T-birds and are you gonna join the track team?” 

Rio’s gapes. “Elena, I haven’t seen this movie.” 

“Chris. Can you _ compromise_?”

Rio gives a slight shake of his head, and Elena nods, accepting his answer without debate. He’d wanted somethin’ with Elizabeth he’d never wanted with anyone before but unless she can get her hands dirty, it’ll always be temporary. He’ll always be waitin’ for her to bail—and considerin’ she was bein’ charmed by a guy like Sweater Vest, he figures it’s just around the corner. He _ should _ cut her loose now, walk away—but somethin’ stops him. He can blame it on Fusil, but he knows: that ain’t it. 

“You know, this doesn’t mean that you can’t ever have it—you don’t have to resign yourself to never having a serious relationship just because this one didn’t work. I know you’re still, you know, _processing._ But you should think about it.” 

Rio opens his mouth to respond, to argue maybe, but Elena shakes her head at him. She rests her cheek on Rio’s shoulder, and they sit like that for a while. 

Eventually, Miriam opens the door and tells them people are leaving, that it’s time to say their goodbyes. The door clicks shut behind her, and Elena stands up, wiping her hands off on her jeans. 

“Chris?” she asks, looking down at him.

“Yeah?”

“Truth or Dare.”

Rio lets out a barely audible laugh through his nose. “We ain’t 15 anymore, Elena.”

“Humor me.”

“You know me. Still the same as I always was.” 

Elena rolls her eyes. “I know you are. But I dare you _ not _ to be. I dare you to take a chance on someone, to give something real another shot. You deserve it, you know.”

And with that, she disappears into the house leaving Rio alone in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you again to medievalraven for beta'ing for me!


End file.
